Stay Healthy the Easy Way

Stay Healthy the Easy Way

By Catherine Ryan

Stay healthy the easy way! Sure, eating a balanced diet and exercising regularly are two of the best ways to stay healthy. But doing them isn’t always easy. Stop beating yourself up if that fast food drive-through was just too tempting or you fell off the workout wagon. There are plenty of other ways to help protect and maintain your health — and they’re a lot easier than you may think. Adopt these habits today and start feeling your healthy best tomorrow.

1. Floss daily to save your heart.
With this one simple daily ritual, you can keep both your smile and your ticker in tip-top shape. Bacteria from gum disease can trigger an overproduction of C-reactive protein, a substance that leads to inflammation and is tightly linked to heart disease, according to the Journal of Periodontology. Flossing helps remove the plaque that breeds the bacteria, so no plaque means no bacteria — and no disease-causing compounds.

2. Kiss more to control cholesterol and stress.
Couples who smooched more often over a six-week period lowered their cholesterol and reported feeling less stressed, according to a study from Arizona State University. Because stress is tied to higher cholesterol, the relaxing effect of affection can thwart heart-clogging molecules, researchers say.